The Doctor's Prayer
by Grac3
Summary: Part eleven of the Angel!Verse. The Doctor has twelve minutes to get to the Pandorica - but he isn't sure that twelve minutes is long enough. Episode tag: The Big Bang.


**A.N.:** I have said that this isn't a re-write, and I don't think that it is, because we don't know what happened from the Doctor's perspective during the time when he had to get to the Pandorica while the rest of them were upstairs on the roof and with the Dalek.

**Warnings:** Minor spoilers for The Day of the Doctor, major religious themes

**Series summary: **The TARDIS doesn't always take the Doctor where he wants to go, but it always takes him where he needs to go; Time Lords hold a secret behind their backs, and they have a duty to follow.

**Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who**

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He had twelve minutes to get down a corridor. Normally, that would have been enough time to get down a corridor – especially one that wasn't particularly long. Normally, that would have been more than enough time. But this time, he had been shot by a Dalek – a partially restored Dalek, but still a Dalek – and he wasn't sure that twelve minutes would be long enough at all.

The first thing that he saw when he opened his eyes, after he listened to the retreating footsteps of his past self and his two companions fade away, was darkness. He had felt a jacket being draped over him by one of the three people standing over him, when they had thought that he was dead. He supposed that it had been Rory; his past self had been quickly followed up the stairs by Amy, so Rory was the only one who had been far enough behind to have time to drape his jacket over him. Even after two thousand years as a plastic Centurion, he was still a nurse.

But he had to get rid of the jacket to get to the Pandorica, so he slid it off of him, wincing at the pain that moving brought him. The initial shot hadn't hurt as much as the last time that he had been shot by a Dalek. This Dalek was still being restored, so its weapons were not as effective, but the ache and the agony was only prolonged by his not regenerating.

He pushed himself to his feet, ready to make it down the single corridor to the Pandorica – only to fall to the ground again, this time on his front.

He tried to push himself at least onto his elbows so that he would be able to move forward, but it was no use. Electricity crackled through his wings, causing him to cry out. It was not the first time that he had been electrocuted – for his tinkering in the TARDIS always put him at risk of a shock or two – but this was different; this was the residue of a Dalek shot, and it stung painfully as it made its way from his spine to the very tips of the final feathers of his pinions.

He tried to keep his voice down so that the past version of himself or any of the others who were upstairs wouldn't be able to hear him, but it was getting more and more difficult to keep quiet.

_Please_, he begged in his head, reaching out to the presence that had never felt further from him than it did while he lay on that floor; even after he had activated the Moment, the presence had been there – he had shied away from it, completely ashamed at what he had done, but it had still been there. Yet now, he could barely feel it at all.

_Please, don't leave me. Please don't forget me. I need Your help. The universe is ending, and they're trying to get me. The Daleks, the Silurians, the Sontarans, the Autons… Everyone I've ever fought and defeated with You by my side is out there._

A little strength returned to his limbs, though it wasn't enough to get him to his feet. He inched forward on elbows, getting closer to the Pandorica with every tiny movement, even if he was only making minute progress as he made his way towards the big, black box.

_They can't win_, he thought, pleading as his wings drooped at his sides and he got ever closer to the Pandorica. The blue limbs dragged lifelessly along beside him, the soft feathers picking up the dust from the floor. None of the members of the Alliance had known that Time Lords had wings, and the Pandorica hadn't been constructed to accommodate for them. He would have to squash them in awkwardly, and it was not going to be comfortable – just like it hadn't been last time.

Another crackle of electricity shot through his wings from his spine to their tips. The Doctor cried out and slumped against the floor. The Pandorica loomed ahead, not getting any closer as he lay on the floor and panted, desperately trying to regain his breath.

_I've only just got these wings,_ he whimpered. _They're so beautiful, and I thank You, but I _can't_ lose them now. I hadn't flown since the Time War, since… well, You know._

A strange pulse in his mind replied; a feeling of affirmation from another entity: unseen but felt all the same.

_If they're damaged now, I'll have to amputate them. I won't have any regeneration energy to fix them. Please, God, don't take my wings away._

The Doctor's hand slapped against the floor of the exhibition hall as he continued to drag himself along. He was halfway to the Pandorica now; he allowed himself to feel a tiny morsel of hope, and found it exacerbated by the presence now surrounding him once more.

The feeling was overwhelming, demanding to be felt even if he didn't want to feel it; he just _had_ to believe that he would make it to the Pandorica – that everything would be alright.

His wings still ached as he dragged himself against the floor, still weak but able to carry on. He was not alone; he could trust in that now. He was not alone, and he never would be.

He was nearly at the Pandorica now. He had only a few feet left to go…

But suddenly there was a twinge in his hearts – the after-effects of the Dalek shot – and he had to tense all of his muscles to stop himself from screaming as he slumped against the floor and stopped moving altogether.

His breathing laboured, he tried to push himself off of the floor, enough for him to climb into the seat that the Alliance had locked him in. It was so close – almost within reach of the very tips of his fingers – but the memory of the doors of the Pandorica closing in on him returned with a horrific vengeance; the panic that he had felt in that prison began once again to thunder through his veins, keeping him captive on the floor.

Time was running out; at least half of those twelve minutes had ticked away by now, and he wasn't sure how much of them he had left to climb up into the Pandorica.

_Please_, be begged desperately, feeling more helpless than he could ever remember having felt before. _Please help me_.

_Get up_.

The Doctor froze on the floor, stunned into motionlessness by the voice that he heard inside his head; it was his own voice, but it belonged to another – a thought that he himself had not had.

_Get up, take your place inside the Pandorica, and save the universe_.

A grin broke out on the Doctor's face, and he let out a bark of laughter. With each word that the voice-that-wasn't-his spoke, his strength returned, and it brought with it hope.

"Thank you!" he gasped, reaching up to the Pandorica and pushing himself into a kneeling position. "You are far too good to me." He hauled himself up into the seat of the Pandorica, all his worries about being locked inside without hope of release fading from his mind.

He had not been left, and he had not been forgotten. All he needed to do was wire the Vortex Manipulator to the Pandorica, and save the universe with his saviour at his side.

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**UPDATE 01/08/14:** The next part of the Angel!Verse, One Word, is up now.


End file.
